More Budget Crap

I promised myself that I wasn't going to start on the budget that the Canadian Federal Government brought down this week.

I counted to fifty.

I rearranged papers on my desk into neat little piles then "accidentally" knocked them over onto the ground.

But I can't hold still anymore.

The Liberals have again reached into our pockets to take more than they should in the name of "fiscal responsibility" - and like good clapping seals the general population has seen fit to reward them with a surge in the polls.

Rather than get into the details of why I'm so pissed off I'll give you an example:

Your deadbeat drunk of a brother comes to you saying he needs $150 to pay his bookie who's going to rip his arms off if he doesn't pay him. Out of concern and familial responsibility you give him the $150, only to find out later that the bookie was only owed $100 and your deadbeat brother took the extra $50 and split it by paying $25 to HIS Visa bill and drinking the other $25 in beer that he bought because it was "extra" money.

The Feds have been doing the same thing to us ever since 1993.

If they were actually attempting to spend wisely and take only what was necessary from us they would have run at least one deficit in the last twelve years. No one is that accurate, so the conclusion is that they're padding their numbers by BILLIONS.

Budgets, Debt - Boring Stuff, Really...

Andrew at Bound by Gravity is hosting a spirited discussion over what the government should do with the Federal budget surplus.

I entered late into the discussion, but think I'm holding my own. If you are so inclined it's an interesting read.

Red Ensign Falling

40 years ago today the flag was brought down...



But the Red Ensign Brigade keeps the memory strong.

Red Ensign Standard XV

The 15th Red Ensign Standard has been raised at Striving Against Opposition.

This edition is published on the 40th Anniversary of Canada's lowering of the Red Ensign and the raising of the Maple Leaf. I'll have more to say about this later today - don't worry: I'll not trash our current flag, as I happen to like it style-wise. But, there is something to be said about not throwing away everything pre-Maple Leaf, pretending that Canada really wasn't a country pre-Trudeaupia - There is something to be said for striving to improve, yet keeping the best of the past to build upon - and I think it is there that we have tossed the proverbial "baby" out with the bathwater.

Canada has gained in some areas; but we have lost much that we need not have turned our backs on - and hindsight can only tell us if it is too late to rectify that.

Bu-Bye Cushy NHL lifestyle!

NHL to cancel season at Wednesday news conference in New York



Losers.



Ah, the "faint hope" clause. The "Hail Mary" play. Take the rabid old dog behind the woodshed and blow the mother away...



Bettman, you ass. The only thing you've got is "revenue certainty": ie: zero revenue from me, from my family, from everyone for the foreseeable future. You've bought yourself "profit uncertainty" - how many fair-weather, barely-caring fans (ie. Vancouver Canucks fans) will find something else to do PERMANENTLY?



Oh, I see: A flunky fight.

Trying real hard to resolve this one aren't you boys? I wonder how many Molson Patriots will still define themselves by their favourite sport when this idiocy drags on into 2006? 2007?

How deep are the owners' pockets anyway? Millionaire players can cruise by on savings from previous seasons, or play in Europe, but if the situation was so dire for the owners, wouldn't a lack of gate/concession receipts be enough to put these supposedly ailing franchises out of business for good? Why aren't the banks moving in on them?

Deep pockets, indeed.

Saw It Coming a Mile Away..

Robinson hints at political comeback



What "demons"? Realizing that he'd eventually get caught because of all the security cameras?



Yes, yes, I'm a better person for committing grand larceny in the name of love...

I am so sick and tired of the "personal demon" excuse every time some high profile loser screws up in public. Yes quite a hardship, Mr. Convicted Felon, with a lovely parachute in the form of a slack BCGEU job waiting for him the second he resigned "in disgrace." Where's the suffering? Where's the rehabilitation of his image? Has he done anything to redeem himself in anyone's eyes?

Or is he just going to come back the same old Svend, except this time NEW! IMPROVED! now with Criminal Record^TM to help him socialistically relate to the "commoners" better.

Idiot.

Admit it. We all knew that he was going to try the comeback.

2 years old this week!

You guessed it. This is Rue sneaking in to post:

HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY KRAUT!

Sailing

When I was very small, my dad and I used to go sailing on Lake Simcoe in our 15ft "Lazy E" a variation on the popular Enterprise dinghy designed by Jack Holt in the 50's.

My parents liked to tell stories about how they took me on the boat when I was a month old -- could be bullshit, I don't know -- but I do know that by the time I was four or five I could helm the boat while supervised, and was very good at sail trimming and squeezing every last inch of thrust from the sails.

When my dad was club racing he'd take another adult out (he wanted to win, and as he was only 150 lbs soaking wet, he needed another adult to balance the boat properly, even if the crew was dumber than a box of hammers when it came to crewing a dinghy. Basicly the guy was moveable ballast.) I'd spend the hot summer days ashore, bored, with my mom who slept in the camper-van -- her health was already in decline back then: I just never noticed it because I was a kid and that was how it had always been; Mom slept lots -- watching the boats on the water racing back and forth, waiting...

The morning races over, I'd watch the boats reach in from the course for lunch, our boat easily recognizable from it's red-tipped sails. Sometimes my brother would be sailing in too, on his boat. He was much older than I was and was in that reckless teen phase that meant he had a rocketship of a boat, an International Contender that he and my father had built from scratch, like our Lazy E.

Lunch was a fast, boisterous affair. No one had much time for a four (then five, six, seven) year old boy who wasn't crewing any of the boats. The sailors mostly spent their time shoving sandwiches in their faces, laughing about the near misses, triumphs and gaffs that cost them the lead. Then they'd gather around as the Commodore, a kindy old Brit name Geoff, would lay out the instructions for the afternoon races. I'd go down to the docks to watch the mayhem when as many as 25 boats vied to get off the docks and on to the course as quickly as they could.

It was magic.

---

By the time I was old enough to crew regularly the club had already started to break apart. The hard-core sailors, in faster boats, wanted to race other hard-core, fast-boat sailors. The other hodge-podge of mixed class boats (which we were in) were recreational guys with families that would show up some weeks but not others.

You'd show up for a race expecting a dozen boats, but then only three would show up. This after an hour's drive from Toronto...

It started getting pathetic after awhile.

Dad started sleeping in on Saturdays.

---

When we moved to the Okanagan Valley in the 80's, my dad, now in his fifties, decided that he didn't really like sailing anymore: he was more interested in fishing. We made deals though: I'd go fishing with him if he'd go sailing with me. In essence, we punished each other. I was still a speed freak: I wanted big wind, big waves, on the edge sailing. That was the first time I started noticing that my Dad was afraid of that kind of sailing, which was weird, because he was the one who taught me to love it. Just as it was starting to get fun, Dad would call the day because it was getting too rough.

Fishing wasn't that much better. Sitting in a slow-moving boat, for hours on end, sun beating down, slowing burning to lobster-boy hues wasn't my idea of fun. I hated the fish we caught, too: bony little bastards. I think the fish sensed it too. When I went along, Dad was lucky to catch one or two fish. When I wasn't there, he and whatever septuagenarian neighbour who hadn't broken his hip or who wasn't going to quote the Bible at my Dad would catch the limit (about a dozen Kokanees each.) I hated fishing.

So why didn't this mopey teenager join the local dinghy club? Well two reasons actually. My parents being of that WW2-surviving European stock (ie. cheap) actively discouraged any activity of mine that would actually cost money (ie. Club fees and potential costs involved in one-class Club boat racing.) Secondly, it felt like cheating and that it wouldn't be right to go sailing without my dad. This last one I came to realize later in life. For the longest time my brain raged at the cheapness of my parents and couldn't understand why I was feeling so cheated. If I really wanted to go sailing without my dad I could have found a way: The agony that sons put themselves through over their parents without forming the conscious thought.

---

You look at the past, things that you took for granted in your life, and the little threads that stand out you pull on, and the past unravels itself in front of you. This post was originally supposed to be about something else, but it has taken on a life of its own, mutated into something else, something that needs to breathe, to be released.

I realized that I watched my Dad grow old when I started my teens, much younger than when most young men are confronted with the decline of their parents. I felt cheated that my brother, who is 16 years older than I am, got to do so much more with him when he was younger. By the time I was old enough, and one of the few times he wasn't too busy to play catch, I threw the ball a little too high, he jumped to reach the ball, came down too hard and wrong and snapped his ankle. Tough old bastard that he was, he drove us to the hospital on the busted ankle. I felt too guilty afterward to ever suggest throwing the ball around afterwards...and he never did either...

I realized that my mother was starting her slow health decline back then, when I was little. Maybe right after she had me at the advanced age of 38 (hey it was 1970, remember.) Would she still be alive if she'd made the choice the doctor had given her then? Was it really my life for hers? You know, dear reader, that little thread didn't really click in my brain until I was well into this post, because life isn't an after-school family special where all the choices your parents make are carefully laid-out for you and full-disclosure is made to everyone. I was told that the Doctor had suggested an abortion. I was never really told why, except that he suspected my mom was "too old." I didn't really suspect until now that my mother was making a choice about her own life and health, rather than it just being about me...And I'll never know for sure. If your parents are of that generation you'll know what I mean. They're pretty damned tight-lipped about stuff like this.

She hated sailing, hated the boredom of being left onshore. She didn't much like it once we actually got on the boat after the races were over: day wasted, a bone being thrown to those of us not racing, a small jaunt to one of the smaller islands in the middle of the lake to take a swim and cool off.

I hated the trapped feeling of having to stay with her. No sailboat racing, but no beach or park either: I had to stay with Mom while she rested, childhood energy burning a hole in my chest with no obvious outlet. slow torture for a kid that wanted to go go go! Would I have felt any differently if I'd known that cancer would claim her life before I was 23? That it would claim her spirit much sooner than that so that her death was actually a relief to us all, herself included? Or would I have been the same bored selfish brat I was then?

Am I worth the price that I now suspect has been paid? Will I ever be?

---

It's funny the way the brain sparks. The inspiration for this post was this story in the Telegraph about British sailor Ellen MacArthur setting a new single-handed round the world sailing record:



I was originally going to post about how incredible this acheivement is, what a testament to the technology involved and the fortitude of people who attempt this sort of thing, how when I was a kid, the "girls" minded the kids at the beach and made the lunches for "the men": how freakin' wonderful it is that she is the record holder; not the woman's record holder.

---

But in the end I could only hold onto the thought that I hate sailing alone...

The Power of the Dark Side.

You were destined to have a Red Lightsaber.

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is
associated with energy, war, danger, strength,
power, and determination as well as passion and
desire. You have seen the Strength and Power of
the Dark Side of the Force and have you thirst
for more of it.


What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla


via Ghost of a Flea from several months ago, who's a green lightsabre.

Gay Marriage (still!)

Chris Taylor and Damian Brooks (my evil twin), both of whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week in Toronto, both weigh in on the same sex debate.

From Mr. Taylor:



From Mr. Brooks (evil!):



I'm changing my stated position on this one. I said that I didn't care. Now I do. Because the people ramming this down the throats of the electorate are doing it to distract everyone from 12 damn years of scandal and waste on the part of the Liberals. And now we have to go through this stupid debate before the electorate, who to be kind, have a one-issue attention span. So we have to fight this out. Now. So we can get back to skewering them on HR boondoggles, gun registry crappola, Stripper-gate and sponsorship scandal bullshit. How many of these things are in the news as more than a footnote, or a punchline to a joke about Judy Sgro?

I'm going to stake a position.

At this point, I believe that same-sex civil (insert word of choice here) should be allowed to exist and made legal. I believe that they should be granted all the legal rights and priveleges that heterosexual couples enjoy, including child-tax credits etc. that would result should one of the partners be a parent from a pre-existing hetero relationship, or should the same-sex couple pass an adoption screening process and formally adopt a youngster that needs them.

But I don't think that this is about equality, or even tolerance: it's about forcing society into acceptance, for "their own damn good."

And I think that's the problem.

---

My wife and I own a copy of the movie Mambo Italiano, mostly because Rue grew up in the neighbourhood it was flimed in, within the community supposedly portrayed. There's a scene in the movie in which the gay son of Italian immigrant parents confronts his parents about his relationship with his boyfriend. He proceeds to skewer them about the waste they've made of their lives blah blah blah, typical son confronting parents bullshit. It rang hollow to me because the parents weren't evil/bad/nasty etc., but the movie has a happy ending when (highlight blank space to read spoilers) mommy and daddy publicly accept gay son's lifestyle and are supportive of him with no reservations...

And that's what this debate seems to be about. Pro-SSM advocates are not happy with "tolerance" - no, we have to accept and support them in every aspect of their cause - or risk the label of intolerant, fascist, redneck, homophobe.

No one wants to be called a homophobe because one believes that freedom of religion should trump Same-Sex Marriage. I'm not Catholic, but when I see Catholics speak up based on deeply-held religious beliefs and then the government tells them to shove off because "he didn’t think that the government and the churches should get involved in each other’s affairs."



They say on any issue people can be divided into thirds: the third that vehemently support something, the third that vehemently oppose something, and the third who just don't care. By ramming through an agenda they never campaigned on, this government is forcing more and more people from this latter group to declare themselves: to care.

It's forced this agnostic into the ranks of those seeking to defend the freedom of religion rights granted to us under the Charter. To risk being called a homophobe because they have faith that what they believe in is what defines them is what gives the religious their strength; seeing them being beat upon by a government that doesn't care about religious freedom because it's not hip cool and trendy gives me the strength to say that what the Liberals are doing is certainly dangerous and probably wrong.